of trouble me and him ever had came out
of his peculiar way of looking at Scripture. La me! wouldn't it have
been better to have left Tilly down there with the man she picked out
than to--to-- Well, you know what I mean? You see how it ended."

With moist eyes, Martha Jane nodded. "May I see her now?" she asked, her
lips twitching.

"Yes, go right up. She will be glad to see you."

* * * * *

Two days later Joel Eperson and Tilly sat on the veranda of Joel's
farm-house. "Martha Jane said you had something to say to me," he said,
gravely. "I hope it is something that I can do to help you, Tilly. God
knows I want to do so."

"Yes, I want you to help me," Tilly said, lifting her sad eyes to his
face, "but first I must make a confession. Joel, I deliberately planned
this visit to Martha Jane for a purpose. There was something to be done
that would have been impossible at home, owing to my father's close
watching over me."

"I see-- I see, and I am ready for anything," Joel declared, fervently.

Tilly was silent for several minutes, her glance on the lap of her black
dress, and the black-bordered handkerchief which she held balled in her
little hand.

"Of course," Joel began, considerately, "if you don't feel like saying
any more at present, why, I--"

"It is not that," Tilly broke in; "but, oh, Joel, I am afraid that you
may not agree with me, and this is a thing that lies very heavily on my
sense of duty. There is something that I must do right away. Joel, I
must go to Ridgeville for a day or so."

"To Ridgeville!" He stared blankly, after his astounded ejaculation.

"Yes, Joel. I want to visit our little house again and get some things I
left-- No, that isn't it. Why am I not telling the truth? I want to get
anything--anything that John may have left. You see"--filling up and
sobbing now--"I haven't a single thing with me that was actually his."

"I understand." Joel raised his tortured eyes from her sweet,
grief-swept face and let them rove unguided over his fields of cotton
and ripening corn which lay along the red-clay road sloping
mountainward. "I see, and you think that I--"

"It is like this, Joel." Tilly was controlling her sobs now and bending
anxiously toward him. "So many people know me at Cranston that if I took
the train there it would cause talk of an unpleasant sort. Father would
know I was going and he would not allow it. But Bellewood, two miles
from here, yo